Saturday, 26 April 2008

A new feature request for PHP_CodeSniffer alerted me to the effort of a couple of Zend Framework developers to create a PHP_CodeSniffer standard that can be used by all Zend Framework developers. The feature request mentioned that the name they had chosen (Zend) conflicts with the existing standard that is distributed with PHP_CodeSniffer.

I immediately thought this was a bit strange because I've already had someone from Zend contribute some code for the Zend Framework coding standard, and I've written a fair few sniffs for it myself.

I took a look at the code and noticed that almost all of the sniffs that have been committed to the Zend Framework SVN repository are just copies of the sniffs I have written for the existing PHP_CodeSniffer standards. The troubling part is that all the copyright notices and author tags have been switched to indicate that the code was written by and copyright Zend. Worse still, the licence had been changed to the Zend Framework's New BSD licence.

This is a pretty clear violation of the BSD licence under which PHP_CodeSniffer is distributed, so I've left a comment on the Coding Standard RC page in the Zend Framework wiki. I tried locating an email address, submitting an issue and even commenting on an existing issue, but it appears the Zend Framework doesn't have any scope for non-approved developer comments besides the wiki.

I did get a little angry when I saw this, but I also see this as an opportunity to complete the PHP_CodeSniffer Zend standard and get PHP_CodeSniffer our there to a new developer community. The Zend Framework obviously has a couple of developers dedicated to automating their coding standard checks using PHP_CodeSniffer, so I've provided them with an invitation to contact me and work together. I will hopefully be taken up on that offer.

About Me

I'm the product development manager at Squiz Labs, managing the MySource Matrix and MySource Mini CMS development teams.I'm also the lead developer of a PEAR package called PHP_CodeSniffer, designed to check PHP code for violations of a defined coding standard.